


let me give you my life

by aceofdiamonds



Category: Glue (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2015-04-30
Packaged: 2018-03-26 13:12:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3852184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofdiamonds/pseuds/aceofdiamonds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>james and cal from the beginning to the end</p>
            </blockquote>





	let me give you my life

**Author's Note:**

> title comes from take me to church by hozier

 

  


James first meets Cal when he’s fifteen and Cal’s eleven. Their first meeting occurs completely accidentally when James is cleaning out the stables after school one day in the middle of spring and someone taps him on the shoulder three times.

“Oh, sorry,” the boy says when James turns around. He pulls out one of his ear-buds to hear the next part. “I thought you were my brother.”

“Who’s your brother?”

“Eli,” which doesn’t make any sense because James looks nothing like Eli Bray, the Romany traveller who helps out around the farm some days. James is broad where Eli is slim; fair where Eli is dark. “You seen him?”

“He should be around somewhere if you want to look,” James says, turning back to the mess of hay in the corner.

“I’m Cal, by the way,” the boy says.

“James.”

“See you around, James,” and then he’s gone and James is left wondering if he imagined the whole thing.

  
  


.

  
  


James doesn’t see Cal again for a while, at least a year, maybe more. Their circles don’t merge until James has just turned sixteen and Cal is thirteen, when Tina and Rob pull Eli into their group and James and Annie have no choice but to go along with it. Rob is James’s best friend but there’s something about Annie that makes him feel close to her, both the quieter ones, ones hiding something within themselves.

Cal tags along with Eli even though he’s a couple of years younger than the rest of them but the difference isn’t noticeable, not unless they’re talking about school which no one does much anyway. So no one minds when Cal climbs the hill behind the farm and sits with them, laughing when James comments on the clouds and how they might be sheep after all. It’s possible they’re high, they never seem to not be these days, but James catches the laugh and grins.

“You’re a right farmer’s boy, aren’t you?” Cal says, lagging back from the rest of the group with James when they head back down to the farm. "D'you ever wear anything apart from those shirts?"

"Like you can talk," James replies, his arm reaching out and pushing at Cal's shoulder where his red plaid shirt is hanging off exposing the white tank underneath. His hand falls against Cal’s skin and when he goes to move it Cal leans into it, his eyes flashing to James for a second before glancing away again, shifting so James’s hand drops between them.

“This is the uniform in this fucking town,” he says, spitting on the ground, just by James’s feet. “Everyone’s the same.”

“This is all I’ve ever known,” James says, tilting his head back towards the sky. “Maybe one day I’ll find a way out.”

“Yeah. I’m looking for that too but I’m not waiting around for it. As soon as I’m eighteen I’m gone, before if I can afford it.”

He sounds so angry, rage wrapped up in every word. James’ heart is still beating at double time from the brush with his skin. He’s been having these thoughts for a while, that girls aren’t for him, that he likes to watch Sam in the year above when they play football together. Cal is only thirteen, so young, but when he talks with them, the things he says are bigger than James could think.

“I’m here for as long as you stick around,” and he wonders if that sounds clingy, creepy, but Cal smiles at him, just a bit, like it’s something he wanted to hear.

“Oi! Wankers!” Rob shouts from down the hill by the gate. “Get a fucking move on.”

Cal turns to James, a smirk curving his lips. “Race you,” and then he kicks out and trips James before he can even move.

“Hey, fuck you, Bray!”

He runs and runs and fuck, being a farmer’s boy pays off because he leaves Cal in the dust. His feet pound on the gravel at the bottom of the hill, scattering stones everywhere when he skids to a stop. Cal crashes into the back of him seconds later sending them both stumbling another few feet before they bump into Tina who brings them to a halt.

"Hey, watch it!"

"Sorry, Tin-Tin, didn't see you there."

"You've always been a shit liar, James," she grins, carding a hand through his hair. “C’mon, Annie’s buying us ice-cream.”

“I didn’t say I would get _everyone_ ’s,” she protests, but then she smiles, always happy and eager to please. “Okay, fine, but you all better say nice things about me for a week.”

Rob throws his arm around her shoulders. “I always said you would be a good shag, didn’t I, Tin-Tin?”

“Ugh, not that,” she grimaces, pretends to throw up in Rob’s face.

James falls into step with Annie, laughing when she turns and pushes her head into his arm, squealing when Rob reaches for her again.

This time it’s Eli and Cal that fall behind and James doesn’t really want to disturb them because Eli is decent enough but James never knows what to say to him and sometimes Eli looks at James like he knows everything James doesn’t even know about himself yet. He blinks away when Eli lifts his head from his conversation with Cal and catches James watching him. The look is blank, calm, but it takes a while before James manages to look him in the eye again. He doesn't want people knowing his secrets. He _can't_ have people knowing them. 

  
  


.

  
  


Cal leans up and into his space, kissing him hard before James can step back or stop him. After a second of worry that this is wrong, Cal’s too young, someone might see them, he opens his mouth and kisses back, hands falling to Cal’s waist. It’s a fast kiss, desperate, and James has kissed a couple of girls before but it’s never been like this. He doesn’t know if it’s the vodka they’ve been drinking all night or the joint Cal slipped him without the others seeing but his head feels fuzzy and bright, colours dancing behind his eyelids as his mouth moves with Cal’s.

“Been wanting to do since I first saw you,” Cal says when he pulls away. His breathing is shaky, mouth swollen. It’s the most out of control James has ever seen him. It feels like something of an accomplishment. “Had to soften you up first, though, knew you’d freak if I tried it before.”

“I wouldn’t,” he tries to argue but he’s not sure. He’s been terrified of these feelings he’s been having, his heart always in his throat whenever he thinks about Cal and what they could do together. It’s not the gay thing, he thinks he might have made peace with that. It’s that Cal is thirteen and he’s seventeen and there’s probably something a little off with that. “I’ve wanted it too,” he says, ducking to kiss him again.

Only last night he had had a wank thinking about Cal’s mouth on his skin, how his lips would look stretched around his cock, how it would taste to suck him off in return. He had come with his other hand shoved in his mouth to stop himself shouting out and waking his mum. Now, with Cal pressed up against him, his tongue warm and wet in James’s mouth, his hands skating up and down James’s sides, it’s hard to remember how to stop.

“Cal, Cal, Cal,” he gasps, breaking away. “We can’t -- not here. Not just now.”

“Why not?”

“The others are right over there.”

“So? Where’s your sense of adventure, farm boy?” Kissing Cal in this field with his brain fuzzy with weed is already adventurous for James; when he tells Cal so he gets a laugh in return and then they’re kissing again, Cal’s mouth insistent and so sweet on James’s. “You’re lucky you’re hot,” he breathes into the space between them. “Gonna need to work on your inner rebel.”

James moves his mouth to Cal’s neck, planting kisses along his skin until he reaches his ear where he pulls at the lobe between his teeth, his hand holding Cal in place. His heart feels like it might push its way right out of his chest but there’s something bubbling inside of him that makes him feel daring and happy and like he could do anything. He bites at Cal’s jaw, licking over the mark, and joins their mouths for a third time. He was right with what he said before, the others are just over there, someone could come looking for them any minute, but James pushes that to the back of his mind and lets himself focus on Cal and everything he’s feeling.

“Next time I’ll get your trousers off,” Cal says, stepping out of his hold. He winks. “Glad we had this talk, James, you raised some good points about lamb rearing.”

James rolls his eyes and follows him back to the group. Cal’s shirt is rumpled at the back where James couldn’t help himself from seeking out his skin hidden underneath and if you knew to look for it you would see the hint of a bruise on Cal’s neck, high beside his ear. He wonders if there’s anything different about him, if anyone would possibly suspect they had been up to anything apart from talking.

“You two were gone ages,” Tina says, pulling James down beside her. He leans into her, takes a gulp from the bottle she’s waving in his face. “What were you doing?”

“Obvious, innit?” Rob sniggers. “Havin’ a shag, weren’t you, boys?”

And James knows Rob is joking but he keeps his attention on the bottle in his hand just in case.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Cal agrees, and when James steals a look at him he has that smile, the one where he’s pretending to be a lot of things he’s not. He’s shown James the one underneath, the real one, a few times now. “You up for it next?”

“Lemme finish this first,” Rob says, leering at Tina. “You don’t mind do you, babe? Me having it on with Cal.”

“No, you go enjoy yourself. I’ve got James here,” and she throws her arm around his shoulders, pulling him against her. Her perfume is overwhelming but not in a bad way. Familiar. Comforting. James closes his eyes.

Later he kisses Cal for the second time behind the huge tree on the edge of his garden. Cal nips at his bottom lip and then he groans when James' hands slide down his sides to his waist and then to his arse. He remembers the way Tina had smelled, the way she always has, like horses and grass with a flowery perfume sprayed over the top, and when he ducks his head and kisses Cal's neck, just under his ear, he realises how similar Cal smells to her, with more grass and a large amount of weed to round it off. He sucks lightly on the skin there, worrying it between his teeth, and Cal groans again, the sound going straight to James' groin.

"You don't _have_ to go," Cal argues when James steps away a little while later, his cheeks flushed and his jeans uncomfortably tight. "I bet your mum thinks I'm a bad influence on you."  

"She thinks everyone's a bad influence on me," James says, laughing when Cal rolls his eyes. "It's true! I'm a bad influence on myself apparently."   
  
Cal snorts. "You're a fucking saint, James." 

"And you're fucking delusional, Cal," he replies, a smirk pulling at his lips. "See you tomorrow."

"Night, Rapunzel," Cal shouts, laughing loudly when James flips him off over his shoulder.

 

 

.

  
  


“Rob’s a bit of a dick,” Cal says a few days later.

“He’s my best mate.”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t admit he can be a dick.”

“Aren’t we all a bit of a dick in this world? Humanity as a whole --” and then he laughs loudly, ducking away from the punch Cal swings at his arm.

“Don’t get all philosophical on me,” he whines, pushing James until they fall onto the hay. It feels to close to everyone James knows, out here in the abandoned barn by the edge of the farm, but it’s pouring outside and everywhere else is too public. James catches Cal’s arm so he can pull him closer. He’s always pulling him closer, searching for more, wanting the freedom they can’t have.

The kiss is sloppy and lazy, their mouths sliding together, lips catching lips with no real intentions. It's calm in here, almost eerily so, with the rain hammering on the roof and the sharp tang of straw in the air. James loses himself in the way Cal is panting in his ear, his fingers pushing at his shirt and the zip of his jeans, and he decides fuck it.

He lets Cal pull him apart, slowly, so slowly, until he’s babbling and gripping the hay by his side as he falls over the edge, Cal’s name the only thing he can remember for a long space of time, and then he rolls them over, ducks down to mouth at Cal’s belly, his hips, and when Cal comes he grins against him, licking the salty taste of his come from his lips, and he feels like this is what lust and love tastes like when it’s all rolled into one. He thinks that this must be what Tina and Rob feel like when they fuck and they know they both feel so much for each other.

“Stop thinking,” Cal whispers, breath hot on his cheek.

“‘M not,” he mumbles, shifting so he can kiss Cal, his hands still a little unsteady from before when he skims the warm skin of Cal’s chest. “I’m sleeping. Shut up.”

“You’re so boring,” he hears but it’s said fondly so he rolls over, his limbs splayed across Cal, and he sleeps.

  
  


.

  


 

“Argentina? That’s the other side of the world.”

“Exactly,” Cal says, and then he grins. “It’s perfect.”

James has talked about getting out of here but he had meant London, Manchester, Glasgow for somewhere further away. Argentina is hours and hours on a plane, far from everything he’s ever known. Well, apart from Cal. He’s seventeen and to have that one other person there, that person that he loves, that feels like enough. “They have farms in Argentina, don’t they?”

“Everywhere’s got fucking farms, idiot,” Cal says.

“Alright, calm down, I’m coming with you,” he says, kissing Cal, his tongue delving into his mouth quick before Cal pulls away.

"You're serious?" he checks. His necklace is dangling out of the neck of his shirt. James catches it in his hand, squeezing so the metal digs into his skin and leaves a mark.

“Never been more serious in my life,” and that sounds like the truth so it must be.

“I love you,” Cal says quietly just like the first time he said it a couple of months ago. Then it had felt special, a secret that Cal had spilled between them as they played video games in James’ room. It still feels special now; still a secret only the two of them know.

“I love you, too,” he says, just as quietly.

  
  


.

  
  


Their new life is right at their fingertips.

And then Cal is murdered and James falls apart.

  
  


.

  
  


He wonders later if it was maybe too good to be true. That he and Cal could run away to fucking Argentina and start new lives. That they could be in love for forever. Stories like that are found in books and films not in small villages in the middle of England. He finds his necklace where Eli had hidden it in the forest and when he slips it over his head he holds it tight, for a long moment, until a red mark appears. Rob finds him later, sitting in the garden with his hand wrapped around this cool piece of metal that was a part of him and Cal, and Rob doesn’t say anything, just sits beside him until it gets dark.

“I would’ve really fucking missed you if you had gone to Argentina, Jam Jars,” he says.

And it’s not the love that James felt for Cal, the sort that swelled up in his chest and left him breathless when he kissed him for too long, but it’s enough.

 

 


End file.
